Running Free (Woodland Creek)(23)
His words confound me. “I’m not running,” I assure him.
“Yet. But once she opens herself fully to you, I want you to remember this conversation. Remember this night. Understand that she’s deserving of love and a good life, no matter how different you are from one another.”
“Otis, I promise you I’m not going anywhere. I know Frankie’s different and that’s what draws me to her. I don’t have any plans of letting her slip through my fingers.”
He nods and without another word climbs into the truck. Once I can’t see the taillights to the truck anymore, I head back inside.
I find her staring at a picture on the wall. Once I close and lock the door behind me, I stalk over to her and stand with my chest up against her back.
“Who is she?”
My eyes skim over the picture and I smile. Wide, brown eyes and a glowing smile. Wavy locks of auburn hair hanging down in front of her shoulders. The picture was taken for the yearbook at the school she taught at, the year before we found out she had cancer.
“My mom. She passed away when I was seventeen.”
She turns in my arms and locks her arms around my waist, her eyes devouring my face. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug it off and clear my throat. “I loved her so much. It was hard on me but no matter how difficult life got, my mom’s words and advice would always get me through it.”
Tears well in her eyes and she furrows her brows. “What happened? Did you live with your dad?”
Just thinking about the * who left us when I was only four without so much as a trace to his whereabouts has my blood boiling. He wasn’t there when I needed him most. He was never there. “Nope, and since we didn’t have any other willing or able family, I went into a foster home.”
She blanches and her face grows hard. “Were they nice to you?”
I think about the old lady who chain smoked and watched reruns of Jeopardy. Juanita Johnson. Her walls were yellow and dingy. She was practically a hoarder. And she most certainly wasn’t friendly. But she wasn’t abusive either.
She used to send me on her cigarette runs since I looked older than my seventeen years of age. Not the best foster parent but I know there are worse out there.
“Juanita was fine.”
And she was…in comparison.
“I remember a boy a few years younger than I was. He’d come to stay with us after his previous foster father was accused of sexual molestation. The boy kept to himself but I could see the pain bubbling just below the surface. That man had hurt him.”
Tears roll down her cheeks as I continue.
“Many times I’d tried to talk to him — to invite him to play baseball with some kids I’d met down the street. But he wasn’t interested. For eight months I attempted to get inside his head. I wanted to help him.”
“Did you?”
I shake my head. “Sadly, no. Before I knew it, I turned eighteen. I was released to my own devices. Lucky for me, I had some sense about me and enrolled in college. Pell grants made it possible for my education and I delivered pizzas to pay for a shitty apartment to survive while I went to school.”
She looks down at her feet.
“I never forgot about him though. And when I got word that Juanita died of a massive heart attack not long after I’d left, I contacted my old caseworker and asked if I could foster the boy. Unfortunately, an eighteen-year-old college kid isn’t foster parent material. But they assured me they’d placed him in a loving home. Somehow I doubted that.”
“Did you ever hear from him again?” she asks, sadness eating her words.
“Once I joined Chicago PD, I looked him up in our system. But, his records indicated he had a rap sheet a mile long by then and had run away a couple of years before. I figure wherever he is, he’s happier than he was during the brief period I knew him.”
She nods. “I bet he is. I was happier once I ran away.”
Dipping down, I place a kiss on her nose. “They weren’t nice to you?”
Shaking her head, she presses her lips into a firm line and shakes her head. “No, Gun, they were not. That’s why I help these teens when I can. Sometimes, they’re better off with someone like me — someone who’s been there and done that — to help them understand there is more to life than being an unwanted houseguest. Otis and I always make them feel wanted. Then, we prepare them on how to succeed at life.”
The sadness in her eyes is hidden by a thin veil of ferocity. I want to lift it and kiss it all away. This woman although incredibly gorgeous on the outside, also harbors one of the most beautiful souls. Nobody ever gets to see it but I intend on seeing every glowing inch.
Slipping my hands into her hair, I kiss her softly at first. To tell her wordlessly all of the things that run ramped through my mind. Her sweet moan into my mouth is a thank you. But when her hands fist my shirt and she pulls me closer, deepening our kiss, the air around us crackles with the electricity we create. Each moan becomes a plea.
My hand drops from her hair and I palm her breast with it. The nipple is hard and unyielding under my fingertips. I want it between my teeth. To see just how firm it is.
Her body squirms with need under my touch and my cock presses into her.
“Come on,” I growl as I yank my lips from hers.
The naughty glint in her eyes fuels my desire to get her naked in my bed. Rather roughly, I grab her hand and drag her down the hallway. She chuckles, one of the throaty, sexy variety, and I flash her a wicked grin over my shoulder. Once in my room, I shut the door so Cutie Pie doesn’t try and join in on the festivities.